Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday cast the Jeffrey Epstein controversy as "irrelevant" amid an effort on Capitol Hill to force a vote to release all files related to the deceased sex offender.
"This is a Democrat hoax that never ends," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the push for more transparency in the Epstein matter.
"From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given," the president said. "But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president."
The comments came as a group of survivors joined House members in a push to compel the Justice Department to release records so far withheld from Congress.
ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Jay O'Brien asked the victims for their reaction to Trump's characterization that it is a "hoax."
One survivor, Haley Robson, said it felt like "being gutted from the inside out."
"Mr. President Donald J. Trump, I am a registered Republican -- not that that matters because this is not political -- however, I cordially invite you to meet me in the Capitol in person so you can understand this is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma," she responded.
